Plant City Witness Videos Man Breaking Into Pickup, Stealing Money

PLANT CITY, FL — The Plant City Police Department is asking for help to identify a man caught on video committing a vehicle burglary on Tuesday.

A witness was sitting in a vehicle in the Strawberry Hill Plaza and saw a man use an object to break the left rear window of a gray pickup truck.

After breaking the window, the man entered the truck through the broken window and emerged a few minutes later through the same window.

The witness began filming the incident with a cell phone after the burglar broke the rear window. The witness saw the suspect hop out of the pickup truck carrying a yellow envelope in his right hand containing money.

While walking away from the truck, the man was seen switching the envelope to underneath his left arm.

The burglar was wearing a black Nike baseball hat, a gray Under Armour hooded shirt, dark-colored pants, black sneakers and gloves.

He got into a silver Honda Pilot SUV with the Florida tag B5D-NZF and drove east on West Baker Street.

Prior to arriving at the plaza, the driver of the pickup truck had withdrawn money from a local bank and may have been followed to the plaza by the thief.

Plant City police said this may be an example of "jugging." Jugging is an increasingly popular form of robbery in which a criminal will watch and follow a victim as they leave a bank, ATM machine, check-cashing location or credit union. Once the victim parks and gets out of the vehicle, the burglar will threaten or assault the victim and take the money, or will wait for the victim to enter another location and then break into the vehicle and steal the money.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Manuel Diaz at the PlantCity Police Department, 813-757-9200.